Tag Archives: fuels

Sports

Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant fuels second-half rally, scores 41 to bury Lakers

Leave a comment

The Los Angeles Lakers were seemingly in control, up by 13 late in the third quarter, before Ja Morant nearly outproduced them on his own down the stretch in the Memphis Grizzlies’ 104-99 home win on Wednesday.

Morant scored 16 of his 41 points from the 3-minute, 38-second mark in the third through the final buzzer, keying a 37-19 push by Memphis to finish things off.

“When you shoot the ball as well as he did tonight from the perimeter, with his speed and his athleticism, it’s gonna be hard to contain a guy like that because he’s doing the whole three levels of scoring,” said LeBron James, whose 37 points, including eight 3-pointers to tie a career high, went for naught. “You can’t — there’s nothing you can do. He has you at his beck [and call].”

It was the second time Morant topped 40 points against the Lakers this season in the two times he has played them.

He shot 13-for-27 from the field on Wednesday, including 6-for-7 from 3-point range, and was 9-for-12 from the free throw line, adding 10 rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocks.

As strong as his final flourish was, he was equally impressive earlier in the game when he scored 16 points in a row for the Grizzlies bridging the late second quarter and early third.

“We started fouling, man, and he went to the free throw line and started seeing the ball go in, and he got his rhythm that way,” Lakers guard Malik Monk said. “And when a guy gets it going like that, there’s not much you can do.”

Memphis’ comeback thwarted what could have been a 2-0 road trip for the Lakers to get them back to .500 after a win at the Houston Rockets on Tuesday. Instead, L.A. (17-19) is looking at the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference standings as the season nears the midway point, with Memphis (22-14) strengthening its grip on the No. 4 seed.

“Obviously, Ja, what an unbelievable night by him, the tone he was setting throughout the game,” Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said. “When he got going, it just kind of fueled everyone else, and we kind of just broke loose there in that third quarter.”

Morant did finish with six turnovers, including three in the fourth quarter, but it was the Lakers who were left lamenting their 18 turnovers, which led to 21 points for the Grizzlies.

James had five turnovers, marring his sixth straight 30-point effort, and Russell Westbrook also registered five turnovers, dimming the impact of his third straight triple-double (16 points, 12 assists, 10 rebounds).

“We understand that we have a lot of attackers, but the careless turnovers where literally you just turn the ball over, there’s no pressure or reason for it, those are the ones that get us in trouble,” said James.

James’ most glaring miscue of the night came with 6.7 seconds left and the Lakers trailing by 3, when he threw the ball away to the Grizzlies, denying L.A. the chance to attempt a game-tying shot.

“The one thing I think probably hurt us the most down the stretch was the turnovers and the one more play, where [L.A. failed to execute] the easy play to make one more pass to the open man,” said Lakers acting coach David Fizdale, filling in while Frank Vogel is in the league’s health and safety protocols.

Westbrook, whose turnovers have been a common theme in Lakers losses this season, shifted the blame elsewhere. He said the difference between L.A. closing out the Rockets in the fourth on Tuesday and failing to secure the win against the Grizzlies a night later came down to shot selection.

The Lakers were 12-for-21 from the field in the fourth quarter in Houston, going 1-for-5 from 3. They shot 7-for-20 in the final frame in Memphis, including a 2-for-10 mark from 3.

James accounted for a 2 for 6 mark in the fourth himself, with the rest of the team going 0-for-4, including a miss from Westbrook.

“You can watch the tale of the two and see where our shots come from,” Westbrook said. “Not much in the paint.”

Read original article here

Sports

Video of Peng Shuai With Olympic Officials Fuels a Showdown With Tennis

Leave a comment

According to the I.O.C. statement, Bach invited Peng to a dinner when he arrives for the Games in Beijing, which would include Terho and Li Lingwei, an I.O.C. member and Chinese Tennis Federation official who also participated in the call.

However, the seemingly friendly banter and dinner plans did little to satisfy Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour. Simon has been trying to establish independent contact with Peng for more than a week to no avail and has grown increasingly strident in his criticism of the Chinese government as its government-controlled media entities released a series of photos and videos of her.

In a statement on Sunday following the release of the I.O.C. video, a spokesperson for the WTA and Simon said, “It was good to see Peng Shuai in recent videos, but they don’t alleviate or address the WTA’s concern about her well-being and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion. This video does not change our call for a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault, which is the issue that gave rise to our initial concern.”

While several top sports officials have spoken out on Peng’s behalf, and asked the “Where is Peng Shuai” question that has gone viral in recent weeks, only Simon has made it clear that his organization will not hold any tournaments in China if the government does not grant her permission to move freely, speak openly about the assault allegations and investigate the incident.

The move could cost women’s pro tennis hundreds of millions of dollars of investment from China, but in a letter to China’s ambassador to the U.S. on Friday, Simon reiterated the organization’s position. He said the WTA would not be able to continue to hold its nine events in China, including the prestigious Tour Finals, scheduled to take place in Shenzhen through 2028, if he could not guarantee the safety of tennis players in the country.

The men’s pro tour has also demanded assurance of Peng’s safety but has not threatened to stop holding tournaments in China, which has widely been viewed as a major growth market for all sports but presents significant moral hazards for anyone conducting business with an increasingly authoritarian government.

“Money trumps everything,” said Martina Navratilova, the former champion and tennis commentator, who defected to the United States when she was 18 years old to escape communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

Read original article here

World

‘A tipping point’: how poor forestry fuels floods and fires in western Canada | Canada

Leave a comment

A devastating string of floods and landslides have shocked residents in British Columbia, a west Canadian province increasingly forced to grapple with the effects of the climate crisis. As images of the devastation circulate on social media, experts warn that management of the province’s forests will be critical to blunting the effects of future storms.

“It’s just this awful feeling of being right – and not wanting to be right. This is exactly what the best available science has predicted for years,” said Peter Wood, author of a recent report on the link between clearcut logging and community safety from the Sierra Club BC. “We know the outcome when you log steep slopes … You reach sort of a tipping point, where the forest is no longer able to provide that moderating service of controlling flow of water.”

On Tuesday, more residents were forced to flee their homes amid intermittent landslides and rising water levels. Videos from aerial flyovers showed parts of Abbotsford inundated with flood waters. Further north, a section of the Coquihalla highway, one of the province’s main road systems, appeared to have been severed. Officials say it could be months before the highway can safely reopen.

Officials said it could be months before one of the province’s busiest highways reopens, after sections were destroyed. Rescue teams also began the search for people whose cars may have been buried after a series of mudslides trapped vehicles travelling east of Vancouver.

Search and rescue personnel help flood evacuees disembark from a helicopter in Agassiz, British Columbia, on Monday. Photograph: Jonathan Hayward/AP

Experts have long cautioned that clearcut logging affects slope stability, the rate at which water is absorbed into the ground and the ability to hold soil in root systems. Without trees, heavy rains can wash large amounts of sediment into nearby water systems, choking creeks and streams and causing them to quickly overflow.

“Over the last couple days, I’ve been looking at the areas that have been particularly hard hit, and it happens to coincide with some of the communities that have been logged the heaviest,” said Wood. “A lot of that is due to the mountain pine beetle, but nonetheless, the cutting really does affect the amount of water that flows overland.”

At the same time, British Columbia has suffered some of its worst wildfire seasons in recent years. As the aftermath of the storm became clear, a number of the areas worst hit were also near blazes that tore through the province earlier in the summer.

Smoke rising from fire at McKay Creek is seen from Lillooet, British Columbia, in June. Photograph: Sid Bones-Scotchman/Reuters

“There’s a very clear link between a wildfire happening and the risk of a landslide or debris flow,” said Thomas Martin, a forester in the province. “If you burn a lot of the trees, grass and shrubs, there are fewer living things to intercept the water. It just flows directly off the hill. And fires can make the soil hydrophobic so the runoff increases even more.”

The problem for the province isn’t just that fires are getting larger – they’re also getting more severe and are burning at higher temperatures.

Martin says forest ecologists have long recommended controlled burns as well as selective logging to thin the forests, allowing larger mature trees to thrive and improving protection against wildfires.

“But there does not seem to be a political will to do what is required. We’re talking about a large-scale look at the landscape, and how can we adapt our forests to climate change.”

While forest fires have long been seen as a summer event, the recent flooding has highlighted how interconnected the issues are.

“You have all these indirect effects on the landscape. Landslides have now taken out two major highways. The entire town of Merritt has been flooded, lost its drinking water and been evacuated,” he said. “Would I have predicted that both our key highways would get absolutely destroyed in this event? No. But was I surprised that it seems like both of these watershed events occurred in wildfires? No.”



Read original article here

Business

Shell moving to London amid global shift away from fossil fuels

Leave a comment

Royal Dutch Shell is proposing relocating its headquarters from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom (U.K.) among other restructuring moves as the world shifts away from fossil fuel dependence. 

The company wants to establish a more simple structure to ensure it remains competitive as more energy comes from renewable resources, a Shell press release said Monday. 

The company, which would no longer use “Royal Dutch” as part of its name after the change, has been incorporated in the U.K. with Dutch tax residency and dual share structure since 2005, according to the statement.

“The simplification will normalize our share structure under the tax and legal jurisdictions of a single country and make us more competitive,” Chairman Andrew Mackenzie said in his company’s statement. “As a result, Shell will be better positioned to seize opportunities and play a leading role in the energy transition.”

Shareholders are scheduled to vote on the change at a meeting on Dec. 10.

Shell added that it is “proud of its Anglo-Dutch heritage and will continue to be a significant employer with a major presence in the Netherlands.”

But Dutch officials said they were “unpleasantly surprised” by the move, according to The Associated Press.

“The government deeply regrets that Shell wants to move its head office to the United Kingdom,” Economic Affairs and Climate Minister Stef Blok told the AP. “We are in talks with the top of Shell about the implications of this move for jobs, critical investment decisions and sustainability.”

The company had long been in disagreement with authorities over Holland’s 15 percent dividend withholding tax on some of its shares, which made the firm less attractive to some international investors. Under the new structure, all shares would be under British law and unaffected by the tax, according to Reuters.

Earlier this year, a Dutch court issued a decision, which is binding only in the Netherlands, that Royal Dutch Shell had to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 to better align with targets set out in the Paris agreement. The ruling required a notable increase from Shell’s initial 2030 goal for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent of 2019 levels.



Read original article here

US

COP26 climate agreement reached in Glasgow with unprecedented reference to fossil fuels

Leave a comment

The final text points explicitly to coal, which is the single biggest contributor to climate change. In all 25 COPs before Glasgow, never has an agreement mentioned coal, oil or gas, or even fossil fuels in general, as drivers — let alone the main cause — of the climate crisis.

A visibly teary COP26 President Alok Sharma made the announcement with strikes of a gavel. He orally amended the most recent draft of the text by watering down the language around fossil fuels after India and Iran raised objections to it. The final agreement now refers to a phasing “down” of coal as opposed to a phasing “out.”

The talks went into overtime as deep divisions remained on key issues on Friday evening, when the conference was originally scheduled to end. In addition to the language around fossil fuels, a key sticking point was the amount of money the developed world should pay the Global South to help it adapt to the climate crisis.

Sharma earlier told delegates he was “infinitely grateful” for keeping 1.5 alive. Sharma’s overarching goal was to get a deal that moved the world forward on containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say that limit is needed to avoid worsening impacts of the climate crisis and to steer away from catastrophic climate change.

But several countries voiced opposition to some of the outcomes.

Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga complained that the process to amend language on fossil fuels at the last minute was not transparent enough.

“We don’t need to phase down but to phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies,” said Sommaruga, who represents the Environmental Integrity Group, which includes six parties to the UN climate change agency.

She added that the EIG chose not to stand in the way of an agreement, but that the group was “disappointed.”

“This will not bring us closer to 1.5 but make it more difficult to reach it,” Sommaruga said.

Seve Paeniu, climate envoy for Tuvalu — a low-lying atoll nation under threat of sea level rise — told journalists before the final session that he was heartened by the progress but that words need to be followed by actions.

“There’s a lot of commitment to take action. So between now the next COP, countries just need to deliver on those commitments. So there’s a lot of work now. I think Glasgow has provided a platform for ambition. The challenge now is for countries to actually deliver on those,” he said.

He was disappointed, however, that there was not a firmer decision on a loss and damage fund, which would have seen wealthy nations pay for climate crisis impacts in more vulnerable countries, like Tuvalu.

“First of all, little countries made our voices heard, but in a negotiation room like this, you’ve got the big countries. So it’s a case of take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal,” he said. “So there was no other option left for us. We just want to work with this and are hopeful that some outcome would come out of this dialogue.”

This is a breaking news story. More to come.

Read original article here

US

COP26 draft agreement published on final day includes unprecedented reference to fossil fuels

Leave a comment

The draft comes on the final day of the nearly two-week conference but is not final — it will need all 197 parties in attendance to agree to it.

Although it retains a reference to fossil fuels, the language has been slightly watered down from the earlier version. The current draft calls for the acceleration of “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels,” while the earlier draft didn’t include the word “inefficient.”

Still, if it is retained, even in its current form, it would be the first Conference of the Parties climate agreement to make any mention of the role of fossil fuels, the biggest contributor to the human-made climate crisis.

Two sources familiar with the talks told CNN on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Australia were trying to have the article on fossil fuels removed.

The Friday draft agreement, published by the COP26 presidency, also retains language saying the world should be aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The document “recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared to 2 °C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.”

To do that, “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” are required, the document says. That language is in line with the latest science, which shows the world must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the climate crisis worsening and approaching a catastrophic scenario.

A key analysis published on Tuesday said the world is on track for 2.4 degrees of warming. That would mean the risks of extreme droughts, wildfires, floods, catastrophic sea level rise and food shortages would increase dramatically, scientists say.

This is a developing story.

Read original article here

Entertainment

Astroworld disaster fuels wave of satanic conspiracy theories on TikTok | Houston

Leave a comment

Videos of the Astroworld crowd crush that killed eight people flooded TikTok over the weekend. But conspiracy theories have also flourished alongside the graphic footage, accusing the rapper Travis Scott, who founded and performed at the festival, of orchestrating a massive satanic ritual.

“This ain’t a festival, it’s a sacrifice,” reads one typical comment. “The music industry is demonic and collects souls,” reads another comment with 34,000 likes.

Despite its absurdity, the theory has steadily gained traction – with phrases such as “astroworld demonic”, “astroworld illuminati” and “astroworld upside down cross” trending among other AstroWorld content on the platform.

Experts say the viral misinformation illustrates how young social media users are increasingly susceptible to fringe conspiracy theories, despite their reputation as savvy “digital natives”.

How the Travis Scott Astroworld festival tragedy unfolded – video report

“We have this stereotype of conspiracy theorists being older people on social media, but young people can in some ways be more susceptible,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor studying social media platforms at Syracuse University.

“We know that human brains really like sensational content, and teenage brains even more so because they are still developing,” she added.

Internet users have seized on several far-fetched “symbols” present at the concert, including imagery of flames and burning doves. Some TikTok users described the stage as “an inverted cross leading to hell”.

Others cited numerology, falsely claiming that Travis Scott and his fellow performer Drake “were born 66 months 6 days apart”.

Joseph Russo, who teaches a class on the anthropology of conspiracy theories at Wesleyan University, said such wild claims bore links to QAnon, a conspiracy theory that claims a secret cabal of pedophiles controls the government and is trafficking children.

“It is mutating and taking different forms, but it goes back to the idea there is a shadowy group of people in control behind it all,” Russo said. “It is super seductive, and always comes back – but it is surprising young people are following this script more and more.”

Gen Z – the name for the generation born after 1996 – faces a number of risk factors for misinformation. It has far higher rates of mistrust in traditional institutions such as the news media and the government compared with past generations and uses social media to get its news coverage at much higher rates than its counterparts.

The Astroworld main stage where Travis Scott was performing on Friday evening when a surging crowd killed eight people. Photograph: Mark Mulligan/AP

The algorithms used to increase user engagement on these platforms presents an additional risk, according to Ioana Literat, an associate professor of communication studying social media at Teachers College, Columbia University.

“This is an indication of just how fertile of a ground TikTok is for creating and sharing misinformation and conspiracy theories,” she said, adding that while conspiracy theories were common after tragic events, it was now easier to share them.

“With the reign of social media platforms like TikTok, there’s the potential for greater and further spread, and a certain rise in sophistication in terms of the deployment of media resources to craft these arguments,” she said.

It’s not the first time that TikTok has enabled the spread of misinformation among young users. In 2020, a debunked theory that the online furniture outlet Wayfair was involved in a child sex trafficking ring was shared hundreds of thousands of times.

A spokesman for TikTok said the conspiracy theory content violated its community guidelines and it was taking action against the material.

While many of the theories might seem harmless, they could still present problems offline, said Abbie Richards, a TikTok disinformation researcher.

“We’ve seen that time and time again this can absolutely translate to real-world harm,” she said.

In 2016, a man radicalized by online conspiracy theories related to QAnon stormed a restaurant in Washington DC with a weapon. The 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was largely fueled by online conspiracy theories and resulted in five deaths.

The rise of conspiracy theories, among Gen Z and its elders, appears only to be worsening in the wake of tragedies like the concert in Houston, said Russo.

“In a moment in which young people feel they’re living in a really chaotic world where not much makes sense, certain conspiracy theories can feel like a security blanket, because they tell us there is actually an order underneath it all,” he said.

Read original article here

World

Countries at COP26 get serious about phasing out fossil fuels

Leave a comment

At least 20 countries have agreed to end financing for fossil fuel projects abroad, a UK official told CNN, in a deal expected to be announced Thursday.

Another source close to the COP26 climate summit negotiations said that the US was party to the agreement. Officials at the US State Department did not respond to CNN to confirm the country’s involvement.

Several countries had already agreed to end international financing for coal, but this agreement would be the first of its kind to include oil and gas projects as well.

The deal “represents a change in norms that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago,” Iskander Erzini Vernoit, a climate finance expert at think tank E3G, told CNN. “We’ve seen this go from the niche frontier concepts to at the core of the mainstream.”

In a separate announcement, a number of countries — including major coal consumers Ukraine and Chile — pledged to end the use of coal.

Ukraine, Chile, Singapore, Mauritius, Azerbaijan, Slovenia and Estonia are among the 28 countries that have joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which obliges members to stop building new coal projects and phase out coal by 2030 for developed nations, and 2040 for developing countries.

Ukraine, the third largest coal consumer in Europe after Germany and Poland, said it would stop using coal power by 2035, the alliance announced.

Chile, which gets about 20% of its energy from coal, according to the International Energy Agency, said it would bring its current target of 2040 phase-out forward.

The UK government also said 18 countries, including Poland, have made new pledges on their coal phaseout, announcing they would not build or invest into new coal power.

Phasing out coal-fired electricity is one of the most important steps to tackle the climate crisis. COP26 President Alok Sharma said that an agreement on coal phaseout is one of the top goals of the summit. 

In October, the UN Environment Programme’s annual “production gap” report found 15 major fossil fuel-generating countries will produce roughly 110% more coal, oil, and gas in 2030 than what would be necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and 45% more than what would be consistent with 2 degrees.
A recent study published in the journal Nature found that a vast majority of the planet’s remaining oil, natural gas, and coal reserves must remain in the ground by 2050 to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Most regions around the world, according to the authors, must reach peak fossil fuel production now or within the next decade to limit the critical climate threshold.

And the latest outlook by the International Energy Agency said that more aggressive climate action is needed from world leaders, even as the shift to clean energy leads to a decline in the oil industry.

In a rare move during September’s UN General Assembly in New York, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the country will not build any new coal-fired power projects abroad. The vow marks a shift in policy around its sprawling Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which had already begun to draw down its coal initiatives.

Xi added that China will also increase financial aid for green and low-carbon energy projects for other developing countries.

The production gap report found that the world’s largest economies have funneled more than $300 billion in new funds toward fossil fuel activities since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is more than they have invested toward clean energy alternatives.

“Modeling results show that all three fuels — coal, oil and gas — need to basically have started declining since 2020 in order for us to stay consistent with a pathway that will allow us to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5 degrees C,” Ploy Achakulwisut, lead author of the report and scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, previously told CNN. “Continuing to delay action will just make the problem harder.”

CNN Business’s Julia Horowitz contributed to this report.

Read original article here

Business

Asian stocks fall to near 1-year lows as oil rally fuels inflation fears

Leave a comment

  • Asian stock markets decline to multi-month lows
  • Benchmark index slips for third straight session
  • Rising energy prices rattle markets

SINGAPORE, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Asian shares tracked a broad sell-off on Wall Street to weaken for a third straight session on Tuesday, as investors feared oil prices hitting multi-year highs would add to inflationary pressures caused by supply chain disruptions.

U.S. and European stock futures edged up, with S&P 500 e-minis rising 0.01%, the pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures gaining 0.2 and FTSE futures gaining 0.4%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) dropped as much as 1.3%, declining for a third consecutive session. Japan stocks (.N225) were down 2.5%, South Korea (.KS11) gave up 2% and Australia (.AXJO) shed 0.4%.

“Investors are clearly worried about inflation due to supply chain disruptions and the rally in energy prices,” said Vasu Menon, executive director of investment strategy at OCBC Bank.

The drop in markets took MSCI’s main benchmark to 619.77, the lowest since November 2020 but it pared losses to be down 0.6% in late Asia trade. The index has shed more than 5% this year, with Hong Kong and Japanese markets among the big losers.

“We have seen tech stocks outperform value stocks, so if inflation remains a worry, then tech stocks tend to get hit,” Menon said.

Oil prices reached three-year peak on Monday after OPEC+ confirmed it would stick to its current output policy as demand for petroleum products rebounds, despite pressure from some countries for a bigger boost to production.

Underscoring the rise in commodity prices, the Refinitiv/CoreCommodity CRB index (.TRCCRB) rose to 233.08 on Monday, the highest in more than six years. U.S. oil was steady at $77.68 a barrel, a day after hitting its highest since 2014. Brent crude stood at $81.5 after rising to a three-year top.

“OPEC+ may inadvertently cause oil prices to surge even higher, adding to an energy crisis that primarily reflects very tight gas and coal markets,” said Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s commodities analyst Vivek Dhar.

“That potentially threatens the global economic recovery, just as global oil demand growth is picking up as economies re‑open on the back of rising vaccination rates,” Dhar said in a note.

Market focus in Asia was on whether embattled property developer China Evergrande(3333.HK) would offer any respite to investors looking for signs of asset disposals.

Shares in the the world’s largest indebted developer were halted for trading on Monday but more Chinese property developers grappled with ratings downgrades on worries about their ability to repay debt. read more

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 0.94% to 34,002.92, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 1.30% to 4,300.46 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 2.14% to 14,255.49 as investors dumped Big Tech stocks in the face of rising Treasury yields.

U.S. Treasury yields rose on investor caution about the need to raise the government’s debt ceiling as the United States faces the risk of a historic default in two weeks. read more

The U.S. dollar traded near a one-year high versus major peers ahead of key U.S. payrolls data due at the end of the week. The jobs data might offer clues on the timing of a tapering of Federal Reserve stimulus and the start of interest rate increases.

The dollar index , which tracks the greenback versus a basket of six currencies, edged up 0.20% to 94.02.

The euro fell 0.25% to $1.1592, while the yen rose 0.29% to $111.18

Gold prices eased to $1,757 per ounce, after rising on Monday to the highest since Sept. 23.

Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Himani Sarkar & Simon Cameron-Moore

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read original article here

Science

New Metal-Free CFRP Rocket Tank Can Survive Cryogenic Fuels, And That’s Huge

Leave a comment

At the moment, humanity can’t look past rockets to get off the planet. Sure, the sci-fi world has envisioned things like space elevators, or teleportation, or planet-bound wormholes, but until a breakthrough happens, we’re stuck with trying to make rockets as efficient as possible.

And one thing to take into account when thinking about efficiency is weight. Present-day rockets, no matter who makes them, rely on tanks, which are nothing more than pressurized containers needed to store the fuel. Generally, these tanks are made of aluminum alloys or steel, because there’s no way around them at the moment, or use metal as lining. And they are heavy.

But that may change soon, if research currently being conducted over in Europe comes to fruition. There, a team from MT Aerospace looked at some older studies, then worked their own magic, and apparently came up with a new design for carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) fuel tanks.

Now, you all know CFRP, that wonderful material used in pretty much everything nowadays, from the aerospace industry to car manufacturing. What we generally don’t make solely in CFRP are fuel tanks, especially ones for rockets, because the material is not entirely leak-tight in certain conditions.

The German team apparently found a way to recreate the leak-tight properties of metal in a small-scale tank made of CFRP. They did this by using “a complex weave of black carbon fiber and a special resin.”

Now, that might not be very impressive, but the next bit is. During tests the team found that this “specific carbon composite and processing method” can not only keep every single ounce of liquid hydrogen in, but also survives being filled with liquid oxygen, despite having no metal liner to back it up.

To give you a sense of what that means, remember that the temperature of cryogenic propellants in a rocket fuel tank can reach minus 235 degrees Celsius (minus 391 degrees Fahrenheit), and only a metal liner on the tank could keep that tightly sealed in there. Until now, that is.

“The material resisted cryogenic temperatures, pressure cycles and reactive substances over a number of separate tests,” said MT Aerospace’s CEO Hans Steininger when the discovery was announced earlier this month.

The advantages of having a rocket fuel tank made of CFRP, and with no metal, are of course obvious. First would be a reduction in weight (no data on how much that would be on an average-sized rocket was provided), and weight is one of the most important aspects to be taken into account when launching stuff in orbit. 

Then, such a tank would require fewer parts to be usable, thus making it easier to manufacture and operate. And, finally, the material might be used to come up with new designs, that are not possible using metals, for the upper stages of rockets.

So far, the only tests conducted on this new material were scale ones. MT plans to move on to testing the tanks with integrated thermal protection. Once that is out of the way, a full-scale demonstrator will be built.

The demonstrator is called Phoebus (which is an epithet of Greek god Apollo), and it will be 3.5 meters (11.4 feet) in diameter. It is scheduled for completion in 2023, and it will be used to “confirm the functional performance of the technologies and new cost-efficient production methods.”

If it works, it’ll probably soon turn into commonplace technology and sure, it may not be as spectacular as a space elevator, but it might very well contribute to humanity’s expansion into space.

Read original article here